Mantra
by Secret Agent Smut Girl
Summary: Challenge Going through the motions is not living.


This is a response to the "Unable to Stay, Unwilling to Go" challenge set on WIKTT. 

***

Sometimes we ride on your horses  
Sometimes we walk alone  
Sometimes the songs that we hear  
are just songs of our own –"Eyes of the World" The Grateful Dead

***

Mantra 

Five years passed slowly, without any meaningful words or needless conversation. Neither required the act of normalcy or the falsity of words. They both had spent too long at center stage being pulled around by invisible strings as a puppet to their world. All that they required was space and solitude. 

Their days were a dance. They moved and remained separate entities, but their patterns were symbiotic. Hermione would idle away the morning, seeking her horoscope at the bottom of many bone teacups while he worked in darkened laboratories. When she would move to research, diving into books and notes, they would share the same space. Their steps formed geometric lines on the floor. 

How they'd ended up living together seemed complex, but wasn't. They worked well together. He would cook and she would clean. Any words spoken were well chosen, mutually agreeable but never non-committal. Verbal acknowledgements were not necessary between them. Their pattern was comfortable and silent. All the words Hermione needed were already swimming between her ears. The din in her mind was a sharp contrast to the silence she worked so hard for. 

The noise in her mind was uniquely her own, manic but at times as comforting as a childhood song hummed in soft tones. Her thoughts screamed at her, her memories whirled and mixed with emotions to create a wonderful mess in her head. It made her smile the small smile of a secret. Even the bad spats sent long forgotten feelings through her body. Adrenaline and excitement were as lost to her as her Hogwarts days. 

Mostly her mind resonated like a guitar. High and low chords repeated to mimic the strains of a song she barely remembered. At first it had scared her, this melodic sound that had been born out of bloodshed and betrayals. How she'd screamed under its' pressure- smashing, breaking, shattering everything around her. 

The selfish child in her was demanding. _Isn't all this enough? _she asked the faceless deity of her youth_. It's not fair! _was her battle cry. It had taken her years to understand that she wasn't the only one suffering. In order to stop the screaming she had accepted the fluctuating noise. To ease the screams she blotted out all other noise.

She knew that if she explained the cry in her head it would be a one way trip to St. Mungos' for her. It would not garner help, only earn her muttered comments from people she'd counted as friends about the rise and fall of genius.  Every once in awhile the scream would well up in her throat, so sharp and ready to rip forth and destroy her lethargy. Ready to push her into the real world. Only then did the patterns adjust, the lines cross, leading her to his work rooms where she'd sit as a wild eyed observer to his meticulous routines. 

How he would have laughed if he knew how she had thought of him during the war. The striking, romantic figure with the easy intelligence she strived for. _Did you know that you're everything I wanted to be?_ Only when she saw him bleed blood as red as her own did she realize that he was human. Comfort in him replaced her awe of him.

He never said a word about the deviations of those nights she watched him work. His eyes were always calculating, watchful and dark. Certain light, when reflected in those eyes, made her certain that high tight movements were what reigned in the screams of his mind. Violins, she was sure of it. Violins for the violence of his past, harsh bows pulled quickly over taunt strings to remind him of the decisions of his youth. 

Violins to atone and guitars to keep breathing. 

It wasn't angst, she justified one evening when her journals' pages had proved to be more interesting than her research. It was just one way of healing. Victory was never as idyllic as it seemed. Harry filled his life with distractions, working and socializing to sooth himself. The Weasleys multiplied at an alarming rate. Everyday the battlegrounds sprouted new life. Trees bloomed again and grass covered the bloodstains. Slowly Hogwarts' architecture sewed itself back together, sporting thin crisscrosses of scars like every other survivor of War. 

One summer day it was all enough. 

There hadn't been fresh flowers around since the funerals. Preserved petals, seeds and stems were part of his art, but the vase was at odds with the darkness of the room. Roses reminded her of the Headmaster. They had shrouded him with them when he'd passed. In this domain the vase was the first thing that caught her attention. 

She smiled at him when he looked up impatiently from his work. The violins were in his eyes when he spoke. "Has your hibernation at last come to an end?" 

Fingering the crimson petals of the drooping flower, she created a distraction. "Roses? Rather inappropriate don't you agree?" 

"They will be dried and used for research, their morbid association has become a hindrance to my work." 

Resisting the urge to slouch under his gaze, she stood up straight and met those violent eyes. "I'm leaving, I thought you should know."

She hadn't meant to say the words, but there was no taking them back once they passed through her lips. They were true, as was the manner of their interaction. There was no use in lying.

"I've never kept you here, Hermione, this place is not a prison." His knife made sharp noises on the table. The beat, even and a bit rushed, mirrored her heart. 

Doubt flooded through her when he looked at her. Could she really leave him alone and unhealed? Let him retreat further into himself? Red petals saved her from saying too much. 

Skimming her thumbs over the thorns she focused on the scratches. "They are very beautiful. Two days ago they would have made me cry." 

"Well, you can take them to remind you of him." Then as an afterthought, "If you would like." 

"Nothing here reminds me of anything but you." She would have blushed if she'd been capable, but he seemed to understand and the comment went un-remarked upon. 

Being in such close proximity to him seemed to hush her mind. She could have touched his arm if she'd only reached out. Instead she respected the solitude that encased him and took a seat at the end of the lab table. "I've come to realize that this silence isn't helping me anymore. Keeping myself in this self imposed stasis is stopping me from doing so many things." 

"You still have a promising future, it would be a shame to waste it in the way that Potter and his entourage do." Still there was a firm set to his shoulder when he said Harrys' name. It was just another habit in the pile along with his brusque manner and Spartan living. 

"Do you feel like you are wasting yourself here?" 

"I only feel wasted when engaged in idle chatter, which you well know," he muttered, starting the flame under the well-worn cauldron. "My work here is just as important as my sentence at Hogwarts was." 

There wasn't anything more to say.

"You've become very important to me." Words were not needed but it cheered her to speak. Final words for a not quite ending. "Goodbye, Severus." 

He didn't respond, just speared her with those dark eyes and dismissed her with a bow of the head. Adrenaline shot through her blood at the motion, she was too giddy to think. The proverbial butterfly bursting from the cocoon, a silly notion but it seemed fitting as she walked from the lab. There was no use looking back, he'd only be working and it would only give her more doubts. He believed himself to be to set in his ways, to deep in his guilt to ever leave the pattern of the silent house. The guilt went deeper than any wound or tattoo. 

She'd come back eventually, there was no question. The quiet would jerk her back like a portkey. The only difference was that she wouldn't sleep walk through her days, becoming more and more mechanical like the man she was leaving behind. Livened, she would return and prod him out of his exile and guilt. 

Alive again she would make new patterns on the floor. 

**End**


End file.
